A Midnight Land
by tasteofhysteria
Summary: "It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing"


_"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,_  
_Creeps in this petty pace from day to day_  
_To the last syllable of recorded time,_  
_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools_  
_The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!_  
_Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player_  
_That struts and frets his hour upon the stage_  
_And then is heard no more: it is a tale_  
_Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,_  
_Signifying nothing."_

* * *

It began decades ago, after the last Great War and maybe even during it. He'd be in that state between wakefulness and drowsing on his standard-issue military bunk, watching the swirling pattern of imaginary sand grains traversing a vast plain behind his eyelids, first east, then north-east before turning west and billowing out until they condensed and did it all over again. His limbs were growing heavy and leaden with fatigue. And his left leg tingled then, unpleasant but not exactly painful. There was the odd sensation of it growing somehow buoyant, like it was losing all of its solidity and then the horrifying sense of intangibility as it sunk through the cot frame, dragging him with it—

Prussia had jerked awake with a muted shout, kicking his blankets away to wrap his hands around his thigh and then his calf.

Those hypnagogic twitches plagued him for almost three years before fading away. Eventually, they were forgotten.

Decades passed then with him beneath Russia's watchful eye. More than once Prussia had faltered momentarily, beset suddenly with phantom aches in his ribs that leeched away warmth, making him pause for brief moments, just long enough to catch Russia's attention and have him turn those quiet, thoughtful eyes towards Prussia, a conclusion slowly building in them.

It was when that look became one of pity that Prussia had roared and thrown himself at the Russian that the phantom pains stopped coming.

Eventually the wall came down and he found he could breathe a little easier around the lumped weight in his chest that he hadn't even noticed existed. For a moment his legs went weak and shuddery, but he chalked that up to one of those rare moments where he could be moved to sentimental emotion, laughing or crying or both as he was swung up into the air like a child, arms wasted thin by hunger wrapping around his brother's broad shoulders and holding tightly.

Time passed a little slower now, it felt like, and years of separation meant relearning what it was like to live together again; quarrels were more frequent than quiet, long silences stretched out for days sometimes, and often the only noise in the house would be the quiet scrape of silverware against a dinner plate. Those days passed in fits and starts, and Prussia marked each one with a little notch in clusters of seven on his headboard, beneath where the pillow would hide it.

One December morning he found Germany sitting cross-legged on his bed with the pillow in his lap and back to the door, running a questing fingertip over each notch with a curious frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows and when had he grown so much that his face had started to etch the lines in already?

Prussia had cleared his throat then, like an afterthought. The chill from the air seeped into his limbs much faster these days. That moment might've been the start of something he was reluctant (or maybe couldn't, not yet) put a name to; it was the first time Germany had looked at him and given him that small, embarrassed smile, barely a quirk of the lips. Prussia had thought, for that moment, that with enough effort, they could forgive each other.

It was a morning he'd woken up late (in 1999 or something like that) that he'd woken up numb. Or maybe not numb exactly. But even outside of his own pulse, he could feel the pulse of the land outside, the pulse of the people. He'd gone outside with the dogs winding around his legs and bumping against his hip and had laid in the grass for hours, digging his fingers into the earth and searching for that dull thrum that meant something was still his. But the grass beneath his calloused fingers simply felt like grass. His brother had come home while the sun was setting and called out to him, asking what he was doing.

He'd shouted back "nothing." Because that was true, and it was supposedly the end of the world soon anyway, so it hardly mattered.

But the world hadn't ended and here he was, lucky number 13 years later and waking up again.

Something was wrong this morning. More wrong than it usually was. Every limb felt heavy and his head was full of fog. He pressed a hand to his chest to ease the dull ache there. The fog in his head was shot through with gentle strands of contentment and calm and he hadn't felt this relaxed in ages. He settled back into his bed, the serenity soothing away the sense of wrongness as he drifted back into sleep. The heavy sensation in his limbs was slowly replaced by a familiar tingling sensation creeping in, a feeling like floating on water before they became intangible and he was sinking, sinking into his own mattress and through the floor to the center of the earth—

He wrenched himself upright, taking in greedy draughts of air, an awful ringing in his ears that sounded wrong. His heart wasn't pounding this time, he realised. Hesitantly, he pressed his palm to his chest again and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"…oh," he breathed. "Well, shit."


End file.
